The Bears Go With Mitch Trubisky
I genuinely didn’t expect Mitch Trubisky to be starting by week 5.
I mean, not because I thought The Neck was any good (he’s complete trash!). I just figured John Fox wouldn’t have the guts to actually trust a rookie. John Fox comes from that old school crusty fart school of coaching. The kind of school that Tom Coughlin went to: the school that doesn’t trust young people to do anything right. The kind that will put a veteran who has spent time in the trenches out there in more trenches before the new fresh meat every time, even when the veteran’s brains are completely fried and the freshie has some good ideas on how to win this fight.
I guess it speaks to Fox knowing he’s toast if things don’t change. Fox has done absolutely nothing of value with the Bears. They haven’t won games. They haven’t drafted terribly well. They haven’t improved. They have been an underrated dump for a few years now, about as long as Kevin White has been on IR. Fox had about a two year window to fart around, but he had to start putting something together soon, and he wasn’t. Now he’s in a spot where he clearly has to feel the burn under his butt and there is a little bit of pressure to actually accomplish something.
So I assume the Bears will throw Trubes out there and Trubes will have a…meh season. He’ll look pathetic in some games. He’ll look good in others. Maybe even great once. Not 5 TD DeShaun Watson great, but…good. Once. He’ll never throw above 250 yards/2 TDs. He might drag them to a win and then we get a week of articles about how he is the future. The Bears will finish at like, 5-11 or 6-10 but 3 of those wins will come in the last half of the season and will give people hope, ignoring that the wins came against weak teams. It’s the positives you have to look at, right?
Then Fox will keep his job though he won’t deserve it. Ryan Pace, the guy who gave Mike Glennon multiple millions, will keep his job. Next year, actual expectations will befall the Bears, and fans won’t tolerate just sitting back and looking at the bright spots. Teams will have film on Trubisky. He will become bad. He will have very poor support around him. The coaching staff will get fired. He is forced to learn a new system. His development is stunted. Eventually, a disgraced Blake Bortles, who eagerly took the backup job that season after the Jags cut him in 2019, will get the start. Blake Bortles will play very well for about 2-3 games and Mitch Trubisky becomes a backup for the rest of his career. Forgotten, abandoned, probably starting for the Browns at least once. Fox will end up coaching the Jets or something for a season before finally just going away forever.
We’ve seen it before, we shall see it again. For those who do not learn from the past will be doomed to repeat it.
As a Bears fan, “It’s about damn time!”
I mean, they used a top 3 pick to draft him and threw 3 other picks in the garbage for good measure. Why wouldn’t they go and see what they got for their wastefulness?
Oh and, Glennon….really? Ryan Pace cut Cutler, instead of waiting to trade him away when QBs normally get hurt, and then paid him more than what Cutler was going to get. Good at business right?
ah man…the Bears make me want to take up drinking again.
I’m not comparing the two, but it’s this kind of thinking that aborted Blake Bortles’s career with the Jags. If your rookie is ready, start him. If he isn’t, no matter how much the starter is struggling, you keep him on the bench. “Seeing what you have” prematurely is a good way to completely waste your investment.
I disagree man.
I remember when Bortles was drafted and there was a loud cry that the Jags seriously reached to select him.
Just about every QB this draft was a reach in the first but some have already began to make us reassess our original positions.
Dude, Bortles balled out in the preseason too. If this is the desperation move it seems to be, RIP Trubisky’s career.
That Sexy Rexy is subtle AF. Bravo.
PS: d’you want Cutler back?
Let’s all pretend (at least for one week) that Cutler is still average, and it was – totally – the Saints D coming together. *sighs*
For years, I’ve had people telling me that Fox isn’t as horrible a coach as I’ve made him out to be. Those voices are blessedly growing silent. I’ve ranted against his idiocy for nearly a decade now– back when he was on the Panthers, it bewildered me that they tolerated his incompetence for so long; I was mortified when Elway hired him for my Broncos; I laughed uproariously when he went to the Bears. He’s not even hilariously awful– he’s just ploddingly bad. Some failing coaches can be entertaining– I didn’t like Ryan, but I understand why some people did. They have a place in the NFL. John Fox doesn’t. He needed to retire 12 years ago. His presence speaks more of managerial incompetence in the upper echelons of the NFL than any other combination of facts or figures.
He’s been to two Super Bowls. How many other terrible coaches can you say that about?
And lost both, not to mention that the exact same team he left behind won the SB the very year after he was fired.
How much more proof does anyone need to see how inept he is at coaching?
That’s makes zero sense. You could easily chalk up his Superbowl losses to bad timing.
They played the Seahawks in their best year (if you look at 2014 again you’ll see that they struggled against decent quarterbacks) and we’re mostly defeated by Percy Harvin. They also loss to the Pats by a smidge in 03 during the height of their cheating.
Making it within points of a Superbowl with Jake Delhomme puts him in the good category. Having it last so long definitely pushed him into the very good category.
Getting to two Superbowls is tough, only so many coaches even even get to one much less two with multiple teams and you have to get lucky along the way. Ask Gary Kubiak – who inherited the team John Fox put together (after going 61-64 for the Texans) or John Gruden who ended up playing his former team in the Superbowl (and they never changed their plays).
We have to get out of this idiocy of judging “how good” players and coaches are/were based on Superbowls. Superbowls can validate how good a career was, but you simply cannot use that logic to determine “goodness”. Eli Manning would be better than Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees, nevermind that all his teams had to do was score 17 points and they’d win.
Now if you want to say he’s not very good at this current point and time, yea. 100% with you.
I agree with your larger point, but the Seahawks didn’t win that SB because of Percy Harvin. Even without him they had a blowout victory.
Oh no you don’t!
The Broncos, under Fox, were completely embarrassed during their trip to the Super Bowl. For God’s sake, Manning fumbled a snap. Why? Was it because the Center couldn’t hear the count? Was it because the Center sucked and couldn’t snap? Was it because the Center and Manning didn’t have enough time to gel and create a working relationship?
Well guess what, all possible plausible causes all lead back to a lack of preparation for the biggest game of their careers, and that is absolutely on the shoulders of the Head Coach.
I could get into the rest but that game speaks for itself. The Broncos were man-handled.
Not many! But that’s the wrong perspective.
With a good coach, do you think that Champ Baily is sticking to Torrey Smith, instead of shifting to the slower but craftier Anquon Boldin? That’s a Super Bowl appearance (and likely win) that Denver should have had, and didn’t. When you look at how *AWFUL* the NFC was for most of Fox’s tenure there, the fact that he never had consecutive winning seasons with them– meaning he couldn’t beat good teams, but beat bad teams– speaks volumes of his incapacity to utilize talent around him. Okay, Delhomme was kinda bad, but he was good enough for his teams needs, and that defense was pretty solid (and should have been better).
What John Fox had wasn’t teams that he carefully crafted. What he had was an abundance of talent that he squandered at every opportunity. He has been, for the entirety of his career, the most conservative, predictable head coach in the NFL, and if he *DIDN’T* beat you by his players just flat out being better than your players, he didn’t win, period. If there was any room for coaching to elevate inferior players to better teammates, John Fox lost. Look at his last game before he was fired in Denver– there’s no reasonable claim to be made that Denver should have lost to the Colts, but they did.
John Fox remained as long as he did because he’s a super likable guy, he doesn’t push the players out of their comfort zones (and hence doesn’t make them better players). The NFL is afraid of new, and a head coach who sticks around gets a lot of leeway, which, y’know, helps them stick around. And then when they get fired, it’s “Well, he was a head coach for X years and made it to the Super Bowl! He can’t be terrible! He’s a safe pick!” But he’s always been bad. His players have always underperformed as a team relative to their talent. He has never adjusted well to adversity. His game plan has never once been something opposition coaches looked at and said, “Man, I just don’t know how he’s going to deal with X problem.” But he had a good GM in Carolina to start off, and Elway seems to legit be a veteran whisperer.
One last point– you mentioned that Kubiak won with the team Fox built. Mostly no– and yes to one point. Elway wanted Von Miller (It was a near no-brainer decision). It was Elway, not Fox, who was the attractor to Peyton Manning, and the combination of Miller, Elway, and Manning that brought in the other vets at bargainish prices. The one area where it was Fox’s team? He wanted Osweiller instead of Wilson for the Broncos 2nd round pick.
Imagine Wilson with 3 years behind Peyton Manning, and now marshalling Denver, with Elway’s tutelage. Now look at Boss Rockweiler. Now look at Wilson. Now look at Brock Lobster. Now look at Wilson.
THAT is Fox’s legacy in Denver.
I purposely avoided the Denver years because that was a great example of lucking into the right situation.
Also don’t let those Denver years turn him into Jeff Fischer.
And and excellent point in that Fox didn’t “build” his teams. To me Fox is a good example of what happens when a coach stays around too long and doesn’t change their philosophy.
Getting Peyton Manning was lucky, but he was still running early 2000s defenses in 2013. That being said, I’m not sure his career was HoF worthy, but I still think he’s in that tier below. Good enough to win a Superbowl in the right situation, but not able to translate that year to year and eventually those years catch up to you. When you think about it that is almost every head coach except for that select few.
My point was more about why he’s still a head coach and less about how good he is.
Am I seeing things, or is that a Sexy Rexy tag? *Puts comic under a microscope.*
I’m betting the bobblehead or the picture in the office.
I fould the Sexy!
So when will you acknowledge the greatness of Comrade Watson leading the Texans of Mother Houston to victory over the Tennessee Traitors?
>Texans
>Every truly solving their QB issue
Watson will possibly have one good season and then start sucking unless he goes to another team. That said they’ll still probably win the division this year if Mariota is hurt, as no matter how good the Jags defense is they still have Bortles throwing the ball, and my beloved Colts are complete trash.
Watson looks like a flash in the making right now. I’m getting RG3 flashbacks, where I feel like I’m watching what will be a good season but an underwhelming career burdened by injuries thanks to being too reckless. Then again he might go Cam Newton, who knows.
I always felt that RG3 was a flash because his mechanics got jacked up after the injury. His accuracy was the top thing that suffered. Before the injury he was hitting receivers dead center. After it looked like he couldn’t hit anything, like he was a different QB.
I felt the same way about Colin Kaepernick. I felt like CK jacked up mechanics by getting too jacked. Not enough was made about the supposed 10 lbs of muscle he added the year after the Superbowl appearance, but his throws looked off in year 2 and only got worse. The Superbowl year he hit guys accurately and didn’t buy into rushing as much until the NFC championship game. The following year he couldn’t make simple throws he made look easy before.
I also wouldn’t rule out the mental effects this had on CL and RG3. That compounded with defenses “solving” them made them flashes.
With Deshaun Watson it feels different.
Desuan Watson has always been able to make NFL throws in college. His running ability is a plus but decision making and accuracy are traits he’s shown throughout college, that have me convinced. My bigger concern was that he end up with the right offensive coordinator.
Dave be honest, how much about Trubisky do you actually know about?
I know he had a pretty good preseason, I know he’s on a shit team, and I know nobody really knows how he’ll do against starters full time. That’s about it.
As a Bears fan I am excited.
Trubisky will shine and Thee #8 will go back to the right honorable SEX CANNON.